Bad Day
by Red Renegade 777
Summary: Second story/one-shot. One of Kirito worst days in SAO.


Bad Day

The sound of glass shattering; a sound that I have heard dozens of times before; filed the air once again. When hearing that sound, I always get a sense of accomplishment. Every time I slay a monster, obliterate an obstacle, or even just slash at a target, I know I'm one step closer to freedom.

After I got my experience from the mob; music started playing in the background. After it stopped; a memo popped up saying I had reached level 65; signifying that I had hit my goal for that day.

Unfortunately; since I pushed myself to level up that day and the game was so damn realistic, I had started to sweat and I really didn't want to fall asleep in it. So, I concluded I needed a bath… badly.

So with bathing in mind, I set out to the town nearest to me; Gridania. It was a fairly big town with a forest setting. It even had elf-like guards with bows and arrows guarding the gates.

Even though I knew they were NPCs, I waved a greeting to them while passing through. When the NPCs waved back, I had to admit that Kayaba was a really good game designer. Such a shame he had to go completely nuts.

While walking through town I greeted everyone with the normal "Good morning," and "Nice Sword!" Wired enough, I didn't see Asuna, Lisbeth, and Silica. I didn't worry much though; they were probably just out grinding together.

Unfortunately; even with being stuck in the game for close to a year and a half; some people still haven't forgotten about the infamous "Beater."

So; some average looking guy with blonde curly hair walks up too me with an arrogant demeanor, a large claymore and just glares at me. The claymore was long in length and quite wide. The blade was colored a dark purple with a shiny silver lining for the edge. The guard and pummel were the same shiny silver as the edge with the grip being the same purple as the blade.

After a minute of waiting (and a minute that I will never get back), he says "I remember you from the first floor boss fight." He narrows his eyes even further. "My friend Diavel died in that fight."

"Look, I'm really sorry," I tried to say but was interrupted.

"I don't care about your fucking apologies!" he roared "You could've saved him! He died after the Illfang pulled out his Nodachi. If you wouldn't have lied, he wouldn't have died (**A/N Hey that rhymed)**! I challenge you to an All or Nothing Dual!"

The crowd that I hadn't noticed till now gasped, and for good reason. An all or nothing dual is a dual to the death. Not many players use this dual because the only way the dual ends is if a player dies or if one of the players surrenders; which would cost them an entire level. This didn't make sense to people in the beta because "why would you choose to lose a level if you could just kill the person or be killed by the person?" Now, with the game being evolved to a death game, it made a lot more sense.

But I am _the_ Black Swordsman, and I had a reputation to up hold. So, of course I had to say "ok," in one of the most nonchalant voices I could. This, I could see, annoyed him even further judging by the veins pulsing out of his neck and the flaring nostrils… but that's just an educated guess.

So, with an elegant "Move your ass," from "Curly" (which I shall call him because he has yet to introduce himself), we moved to the town square. When questioned, he said he wanted to kill the Black Swordsman in a public place.

With the crowd still following us, we got to the towns square. When we got there it was almost deserted. There were a few people just talking, buying and selling equipment, and there was even two people having a first hit dual. Like the name states, whoever gets the first clean hit on their opponent wins.

I was brought out of my mussing by a memo popping up saying "you've got a dual request! Duel type: All or Nothing. From: Hadic" I looked over at "Curly" (I like Curly better, so I'll keep calling him that) and said "Are you sure you want to do this?"

He just responded with a glare and a nod of his head.

So with that final gesture, I selected the check mark. With that, a huge sign popped up over our dueling space saying "Dual about to start. This is an All or Nothing match. Enjoy." I thought the"Enjoy" was a bit creepy but I just shrugged it off.

The dual wouldn't start until we were a couple paces from each other, so we each stood about ten paces from each other. With the clock counting down from ten (to give us time to change any equipment), I used this time to look around since I already have my best equipment (which included my trusty Elucidator) on from grinding… well except my other sword, but I only use my dual sword skill on special occasions. I did notice that the crowd grew a little. They must have been attracted here because not many people have seen an All or Nothing dual before. I myself have only been in a few and that was only because I was infamous there for a while. I never killed anyone or anything like that. They always surrendered.

I was brought out of my thoughts by the horn blaring and Curly sprinting towards me. When in range, he raised his claymore above his head in an over exaggerated over head strike. I quickly jumped back because I knew that could have done a good bit of damage… well, if he is around my level. I didn't even think to ask.

When I landed, I couldn't help but call out "Hey Curly! What's up with the huge sword? Are you compensating for something?" This; of course; ticked him off even more.

While he was in a rage, his swings became more frenzied. I dodged all of these with ease. When he started slowing down a little, I moved. He swung his large sword in an upper vertical slash. I quickly side stepped it and used a quick, stunning sword skill which stunned the target for just a few seconds. Unfortunately for him, that was all I needed. I punched him in the face with all my might, which had the effect of him lying on the ground; stunned; so he can't get up.

I ran over to him as quickly as I could and held Elucidator to his throat and shouted "Do you yield?!"

He glared back at me and hissed "Never."

I knew I couldn't kill the man. I swore that I wouldn't after _that day_ (1). He wasn't even an orange player.

So with a heavy heart I forfeited and shouted "Know this, I have speared this man's life. Next time I might not be so generous!" It was a bluff of course, but they didn't need to know that. On that happy note, the crowd dispersed.

Now that that's over and done with, what was I doing before…? Oh, that's right; I need to get a bath! Conveniently, there was a sign that said bath house and an arrow pointing to my right. So like any sane person, I ran towards the bath house.

Unfortunately, being the person that I am, I was thinking over the fight with Curly while I paid and walked into the changing room. There was nobody in it so I just got undressed, wrapped a towel around my waist, and went in. If I wasn't thinking over the fight, I would've liked to think that I would have seen the Kanji for women on the side of the door I went through.

I was just minding my own business when I heard a very feminine scream. I just thought it was some guys horsing around. So I just closed my eyes and relaxed…until I felt burning pain on left cheek. Then I bolted up and snapped my eyes open to see why I have soon to be black and blue cheek… and then snapped them back shut.

I won't go into any details, but let me say that was the day that I know what real pain felt like.

Now I'm sure your probably wondering why I even felt the pain because of the pain limiters. Well you see, the pain limiter limits all feeling down to where you hardly feel it. So; for example; you're really ticklish IRL (in real life); you'll only have the faintest urge to laugh in game.

Now Kayaba wanted the game as real as possible, so he built the game where some areas those limiter will be taken off. Like a house and an inn… or bathhouses since baths are supposed to be pleasurable, so you can experience the pleasures of real life. So the beating was quite painful.

I think you get the point.

After they were done, I dragged myself to my room at the inn, lied down on my bed, and went to sleep with raging females taking over my nightmares.

So, if I had to sum up the day I had, I would say I had a pretty bad day…

I didn't even see anything!

_(1) ***spoilers if you haven't watched SAO II*** "that day" refers to the day that Kirito took part in the laughing coffin massacre._

**Ok, my second one-shot. I think it came out pretty well. The ending isn't too bad if I do say so myself. And wow, without the authors note at the end here, the story had 1,592 words in it. **

**I actually read a fanfiction where the author stated that fanfiction already covered disclaimers, so I'll skip that. Oh, and yes I did get the town name from FF XIV for those that noticed that. I started playing a little bit ago and it took a little while, but I was hooked.**

**Use what you want of the story, just PM me so I can read your story, don't just copy and paste my story, and mention me in an author's note or something**

**I was trying to make the story reach 2000 words (but couldn't), so that sucks. **

**I got a reviewer on my other story, and it felt nice to have a complete stranger complement your work, so I got motivated to write another one-shot. Anyway, I actually need to get caught up with SAO II, I'm up to episode 20 but I stopped watching for a little while. So on that happy note, I bid thee a farewell! **

**Edit 3/16/15 (4:30 am): Just fixed a few grammatical errors (probably didn't even get half; never was good at grammar), added a bit more detail, and rearranged a few words.**


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